Get ready, because The Night Agent it coming. . . and it promises to be Matthew Quirk’s most electrifying thriller yet.

While it’s not scheduled to come out until January 15, 2019, Book Spy followers are getting an exclusive first-look at the book’s opening, along with a peek at the slick-looking cover art.

The story, set in Washington, D.C., follows a young FBI Agent named Peter Sutherland, who is tasked with finding a Russian mole inside the White House. (For more on the plot details, click here.) Quirk’s publisher, William Morrow, calls his forthcoming standalone political thriller “reminiscent of the early novels of John Grisham and David Baldacci,” and the book is already receiving high praise from other writers.

New York Times bestselling author Ben Coes calls Quirk’s latest, “full of twists and surprises you’ll never see coming,” and Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher series, says it’s “full of “stay-up-late suspense wrapped around a meaty and timely story.”

To find out more, I reached out to Quirk, who told me the book’s main character is actually based on someone he knows.

“When I was a reporter in DC, I had a chance to meet a lot of fascinating behind-the-scenes players, and in the books, I love exploring those hidden worlds close to power,” said Quirk, before adding, “The Night Agent is based on a friend of mine who worked an overnight watch.”

“I’ve had the hook in mind for years: a young by-the-book guy sitting beside an emergency phone line every night for months, waiting for a call that may never come, ready to wake up the FBI director or even the president if a crisis breaks, then one night it rings and the protagonist’s life is forever changed.”

“Whenever I would mention it, people would say ‘write that!’ so I went for it. It’s always a little risky to do a story that’s so close to the headlines, because you can be overtaken by events, but I’m really happy with how it came together. I’m always trying to put together a bullet of a plot that will surprise readers while still taking them deeper into the big real-life issues facing us.”

“The Night Agent is a stand-alone,” Quirk confirmed, “though I’m planning to keep going in the same vein, writing stories about real-life DC characters I’ve come across, with intriguing and perhaps not-well-known roles, often ordinary people in extraordinary positions, and what happens when they stumble across Washington’s secrets.”